


The Silence Is Killing Me

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coping, Family Dynamics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Service Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-19 07:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16530347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: It's a scary thing, almost dying. After Sovereign's attack on the Citadel and the almost-fall of theDestiny Ascension, everyone needs time to recover and cope with what happened. Councilor Sparatus goes home to do exactly that.





	1. Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [chapter title from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uGonlG0bNc)
> 
> **xauu:** a large domesticated Palavenian hunting companion, analogous to Terran hound dogs. covered in metallic quills serving the same function as turian plates, with webbed paws for hunting in and retrieving prey from water. resemble a cross between an otter, a dog, and a porcupine; the polar subtype looks as though the dog part was a St. Bernard.  
>  **Marmat/Marpat:** maternal grandmother/grandfather, respectively; lit. "mother's mother" and "mother's father."  
>  **Octavitius Laevinian:** like the turian Matthew McConaughey, basically

_News Report, Citadel NewsNet, 2183 Terran Common Era_

KEYWORDS: Citadel, Politics, Galactic Politics, Citadel Council, Attack on Citadel  
REPORTER: Maesirn Jaris

In the aftermath of the attack on the Citadel two weeks ago, the Council has announced an emergency recess to allow diplomats affected by the disaster to take time to recuperate. The salarian embassy, being the quickest to recover emotionally from the trauma, will manage the day-to-day businesses of the Tower, with a small skeleton crew of ambassadors from other species with the psychiatrists’ stamp of approval to keep a handle on any major interspecies dealings that may come up.

Most notably, the big three themselves, Councilors Tevos, Sparatus, and Valern, having been on the _Destiny Ascension_ when she came so harrowingly close to her demise, have all announced they will be leaving the station for their own mental health, for an undisclosed amount of time each. While they have declined interviews about their experience, they agree none of them plan to leave the Council permanently, and will return when they feel ready.

* * *

Ierian didn’t let go of his wife’s hand for a second throughout the entire long, torturous flight back to Palaven. She didn’t complain, even though he could feel her bones creak and her plates strain in his iron grip. She had to be in pain, he knew she did, but she didn’t so much as wince. And for that, he was grateful.

He didn’t want to be on a ship. Not again. Not another one. Not so soon. But it was the only way off the Citadel, back to Palaven and Acalin, back to the tundra, back to solid ground beneath his feet, back to real air and real light and real gravity, back to hulking, unnatural, _living_ ships being purely imaginary. Stay in space for spirits knew how much longer, or spend a little more time in space before walking on a planet again. It wasn’t hard to decide. So he let his wife talk him into it, let her ask around, let her flutter her mandibles and clasp her hands and make big, adorable eyes at a couple of their friends and get them to agree to accompany them on the shuttle back home so he’d have more than just one familiar face around him if he started to panic, they’d comp the tickets, first-class was expensive, yes, but they _really_ couldn’t afford him having an attack without the elbow room to have it in, and besides, Kadmos was so _big_ he’d be a big help to a tiny waif like her in that event anyway, so _please._ He never said a word.

His family was waiting for them when they got off the shuttle, in a small VIP lounge guarded by Blackwatch. Well, just his sister, with her husband and their son. His parents wouldn’t be there for another few days, they had work they couldn’t escape, not even for their-son-the-councilor. His grandfather couldn’t make the trek across the city to the spaceport anymore, and Marmat needed to pull her fishing lines in. They’d be waiting at his and Teia’s apartment, with his nephew’s husband and their daughter. That was fine. He’d never liked crowds, and now they seemed all the worse.

Coracia’s hug almost crushed him two steps into the lounge. _“Ierian,_ thank the spirits you’re alright,” she practically gasped, pulling him flush against her and shoving his head into her cowl against his neck. “I – we saw the news, it was all over, I was so scared, I thought you were gonna _die,_ and then they said you had to go to the _hospital…”_

Words bubbled up, burst, died. _I was scared, too. I thought I wouldn’t see you again. There was so much smoke._ His jaws stayed shut. He wrapped his arms around her chest and hugged her tight instead, pressing his face into the base of her neck and rubbing along the curve until his frontal plate found her spinal ones.

“Easy, Cor,” came a quiet, soothing tenor. His sister was gently eased off him, replaced by his brother-in-law. His hug was softer, more reserved, respectful of the difference between the gesture coming from him and from Cori. Ierian didn’t miss how much tension left him as his arms wrapped around him, his hands gripped Ierian’s deltoids, his touch confirmed Ierian was still alive. “Glad you’re alright,” he murmured, rubbing his zygomatic ridges against Ierian’s. Turians from Altakiril were birds of few words, preferring to let their actions speak for them, and Amulitus was no exception. Cori had predicted, the first time she brought him home to meet the family, that he and Ierian would get along famously. She’d been right.

He let Amulitus go, and was ready for it when Daxaeus approached for his own, much more enthusiastic hug. He was like his mother that way, all but bounding into Ierian’s arms and nearly knocking him over with the force of his relief. His apology was hasty and didn’t reach his subvocals. That was alright. It was nice that he bothered, at least. His hug lasted the longest. Amulitus was an only child, and Cori only had Ierian. He was the only uncle. Even separated by a relay jump, he’d filled the role with enthusiasm. When Daxaeus been debating how to ask his husband to marry him, Ierian had been the first call on the list.

He could hear Teia talking off to the side. Introducing his sister and brother-in-law to their friends, apologizing for the security, making sure everybody had somewhere to go. Cori was a fan of Kadmos’s. Amulitus wanted to know where Galerius got his cloak. An easy conversation, dancing around the obvious. Nobody but whoever was currently crushing Ierian against their chest was allowed to speak the words on everyone’s tongues, and none of them had dared.

Daxaeus let go, and Teia moved back over to him, took his hand again, squeezed it to let him know she was there. “Come on,” she murmured. “Let’s go home.”

They didn’t split up right away. They waited until the main security checkpoint, exchanged more hugs and well-wishes while Acalin’s local military police talked to his security detail of Blackwatch and a Spectre agent. Teia did all the talking. He was okay with that. Galerius and Viana had to catch a flight back to the Citadel to make a concert. They didn’t hug, only clasped forearms, and Viana rubbed their zygomatic spines together. Musicians weren’t very touchy people, he’d noticed. _We’ll check in as soon as we arrive._ Maritana wanted to see the sights and had to talk to customs. _Call me once you’re settled in, I’ll stop by for dinner._ Kadmos would be taking the train to Cipritine to spend a few nights there before going back to wherever his next act was rehearsing. _Text me if you need_ _ **anything,**_ _darling_. His hug popped a few vertebrae.

And then they were gone, and security was letting them through, and his sister walked in front of him like a shield from the horde of cameras and microphones and shouting voices on the other side.

He sat in the front passenger seat as Cori drove them home, Teia sandwiched between Daxaeus and Amulitus in the back. Again nobody mentioned _it._ Cori told him how the summer had gone, how well-stocked everyone was for the winter. Daxaeus gushed about his daughter. Teia told them about her work, about their grandchildren. The mundane, the simple, the _normal._ He just stared out the window, watching the city he’d grown up in zip by. Trebia wasn’t high above the horizon, but they had maybe another month before it disappeared entirely. All the prey would either be getting ready for the long hibernation, or have already migrated further south, chasing the sun and the fish. The city itself seemed to be withdrawing, gathering itself closer, preparing for the ice to come and isolate it from the sea that sustained it and the world beyond until spring.

Home was nothing much, not compared to the Citadel. In Acalin, even the most luxurious of living spaces were modest and humble by any other city’s standards. They had to be, to withstand the harsh winters at the north pole. On the Citadel, they had two floors and a wall made entirely of window; in Acalin, only one level and a few floor-to-ceiling windows strategically placed to avoid weakening the walls. Personally, he preferred the Acalin flat. It felt cozier, more befitting a borderline hermit like himself. But, well, he couldn’t exactly be councilor from Palaven’s north pole, and the view at the Citadel penthouse _was_ a treat. It was fine.

They were greeted at the door by a great bellowing, and the door slid open to show his sister’s xauu standing guard. The polar variety meant as a pack animal as much as a hunting companion, Xaznuk was a _big_ specimen, his broad face nearly as wide across as Ierian’s hips and shoulders coming up to his waist. The quills that both protected him from Trebia’s radiation and held heat against his body whispered and shook as he loped forward to greet and sniff, long, rudder-like tail sweeping back and forth along the floor in his wake. He went to Cori and Amulitus first, shoving his big head against their stomachs playfully and letting out a loud, friendly _rof._ Then he plodded over to Ierian and Teia, his caretakers for one week a year before the winter holidays while Cori and Amulitus took a vacation, and leaned against their legs, tail thumping on the ground. Ierian smoothed the quills on his head with one hand.

A sooty-gray, crested head poked out of the kitchen, followed by the much smaller steel crestless one in his cowl. The steel spoke first. “Daddy!”

Daxaeus extracted himself from the group and went to greet his husband and daughter, and Ierian moved aside while his family dispersed further into the flat. Cori, Amulitus, Teia. Xaznuk stayed sitting at his feet, letting him rest one hand on his head. Ezekian was his personal bodyguard for the stay, a stoic crested who chose his words carefully and only asked questions when it was important. He came in behind them, stopping for a moment to check Ierian was alright, then continued after Teia to be introduced properly.

He waited for everyone to be busy focusing on the baby and the in-law in their midst, then drifted forward, skirting around the cluster with Xaznuk plodding amicably behind. Teia turned her head to glance at him out of the corner of her eye as he passed, but she let him go, instead gesturing to Ezekian and informing his relatives, “Oh, this is Serlius Ezekian with Special Tactics, you’ve heard of him, the combat engineer from 314? He’s Ierian’s bodyguard while we’re here, so he’ll be around, don’t mind him. Blackwatch will be posting up around the building...”

He tuned her and the others out, picking up a blanket on his way around the couch. Marpat was dozing in Ierian’s favorite chair, having fallen asleep watching some science documentary on the vidscreen mounted on the opposite wall. That was fine. He was a hundred and fifty-three, he could sleep all he wanted, wherever he wanted. Ierian instead eased himself down onto the couch and tossed the blanket over himself, nesting his head amidst the throw pillows, rolling to face the backrest, and closing his eyes. The side table lamp wasn’t far from the top of his head, and it gave off just enough heat to be cozy at this distance.

Xaznuk jumped up to flop down on top of him, forcing all the air out of his chest with a loud _whuff_ of a grunt as the big animal made himself comfortable. Over the xauu’s contented panting, Ierian heard the conversation by the kitchen pause. Then, low, like she was trying not to let her voice carry, his sister spoke. “How’s he doing?” she tittered. “That’s the first noise I’ve heard him make since you got here.”

Teia trilled, a high, anxious sound. “He’s recovered okay from the heart scare he had, but I’m worried about him. He’s been speaking less and less every day. That first night he was right as rain, but after that he just started getting quieter and quieter. By the time we were getting ready to leave and head here, I couldn’t get so much as a yes-or-no answer out of him.”

“It’s a common trauma response,” Amulitus murmured. “He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

Teia puffed a low sigh. “I know, I know, but still. I worry about him.”

“Hey, who could blame you?” Cori assured her. “I mean, he almost –”

“Don’t – don’t say it, Cor, please, I, I can’t –”

“Shit, you’re right, I’m sorry, Tei, I wasn’t thinking.” A pause. He assumed they hugged. “Here, come on, don’t think about it. Let’s go watch some vids, I think Eri and Xaznuk took the same couch, we’ll sit on the other one. Recelius, do you want any help with dinner?”

“No, thanks, Mom, I’ve got it.” Ierian hadn’t met Daxaeus’s husband often, but he seemed nice enough. Intimidated by his uncle-in-law’s rank and title, but a good person to sit and drink with.

Ierian didn’t listen to the rest, shifting to make himself more comfortable in spite of the xauu-shaped boulder on his chest. On the opposite wall, Marpat’s documentary was interrupted by a click and a fizzle, accompanied by Teia humming, “One sec, Cor, I just want to check the weather report real quick.”

The weather station’s automated broadcast came on, droning about precipitation on the way and how meteorologists were predicting the coming autumn and winter would have more snowfall than usual. As Ierian drifted off to sleep to its monotone, the last full thought to flit across his brain was, _Good. The snow will put the fire out._

* * *

Teia couldn’t focus on the vid Coracia picked out, some romcom about an asari and a quarian. Her gaze kept drifting back to her husband passed out on the other couch, buried under a thick blanket and the mountain of quills that was Xaznuk. He was reserved by nature, sure, but he was never _this_ shy. He hadn’t even stopped to greet the baby, and he _adored_ her. He’d been overjoyed when Avelias had been born, just as proud a great-uncle as he was a grandfather, but he hadn’t even acknowledged her presence. _This is very, very wrong._

Coracia glanced at her, then followed her gaze to what little of Ierian you could see under Xaznuk and the quilt, just the tips of his crest and one foot. Back to Teia. “He’ll be alright,” she soothed, reaching over to rub her shoulder. “You’re home now, there’s solid ground under his feet and wind in his crest. He’s an idiot, but he’s a tough old cob. Just give him time.”

Teia hesitated, then exhaled slowly. “I know. I mean...” _Look on the bright side, Teia, look on the bright side, find something good._ “At least he’s sleeping okay. He hasn’t been getting a lot of rest on the Citadel.”

Coracia chirred low in her throat, looking back at her brother. “I can’t blame him,” she murmured, half to herself. “I was… I was with a patient when the news came. Breaking news, the Citadel is under attack, same thing you probably saw.” She looked down at her feet and put her hands in her lap, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I had to put that patient on hold. Canceled the rest of my appointments for the day, I was so upset. I don’t… I don’t know what I would have done if things had gone differently, if the Alliance hadn’t…” She swallowed. “He’s my _little brother._ And my _only_ brother, you know? I’m supposed to protect him. If that human hadn’t...” She trailed off again, apparently unable to speak the words on both their minds. She shook her head. “I know you’re his wife, you’ve got first call on ripping off faces if anything happens to him, but I’d be right behind you. Spirits, I’d hold the bastard down.”

Teia whined quietly and leaned over to press her frontal plate to the side of Coracia’s head in solidarity. They stayed like that for a moment, two old hens held together by grief and a shared need for comfort. Finally Teia sat back up, watched her husband doze a moment longer. “I don’t suppose… Could we borrow Xaznuk for a little while? He and Ierian get along so well, and I think it’d be good for Ierian to have a friend around who doesn’t understand what happened… It’s okay if no, obviously, he’s _your_ pet, it’s just a thought.”

Coracia considered for a minute, then nodded slowly. “It’s a good one. We’ve been meaning to get him certified as a therapy animal, he meets all the parameters, I just haven’t gotten around to filling out the paperwork yet. I’ll bring over his stuff later tonight.”

Teia smiled, mandibles lifting ever-so-slightly. “Thanks, Cor. It means a lot.”

Coracia squeezed her hand. “It’s no trouble. I love him, too, you know?”

They were quiet for a moment, then Coracia shook herself with a sharp snort and looked back up at the vidscreen. “Oh, hey, shit, I forgot Octavitius Laevinian is in this. Look at that _smile,_ Tei.”

Teia was already looking up on reflex before she even spoke, and while the ochre-plated heartthrob and his dazzling smile didn’t make her _forget_ her sunshine’s plight, it certainly helped ease her worry. So she trilled appreciatively and sat back, leaned against her sister-in-law’s shoulder, and set aside the problem of Ierian Sparatus until he woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does ao3 allow emojis in comments, specifically knife emojis for the friends who've already said they're going to stab me for this


	2. Roadside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [chapter title from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHzpulY-8X8)
> 
> **dazduus:** a large, horned animal native to the Palavenian tundra used for food, clothing, and labor, roughly analogous to Terran reindeer. covered in metallic quills like those of the xauu, unique in that the metal coating can be stripped off and the fibers beneath spun into a fabric similar to wool; quills are shorn at the beginning of each summer for the animal's comfort and skin health.  
>  **claw-fiends:** mythological monsters used by turian parents to scare children into good behavior. supposedly twisted, warped turians with enormous claws capable of ripping the very fabric of reality apart, allowing them to create rifts in midair and travel wherever they want. said to kidnap naughty nestlings, take them away to an unspecified “evil, shadowy place,” and eat them.

Two days.

For two days, Ierian was left alone.

He slept through the first day. He hadn’t been able to sleep on the Citadel, too aware of the empty vacuum beyond the metal shell of the station and how it could all too easily come tearing apart at the seams and leave him floating, floating, helpless and suffocating and very, very dead. Nightmares of fire and smoke and floating away had stalked his rest when it did come, so he forced himself to avoid it, to spend long nights sequestered away in his study, nestled safely in the middle of the apartment with no windows whatsoever, poring over reports and messages and, when those ran out, documentaries and books and puzzles, just for something for his brain to gnaw on until he lost the fight against his falling eyelids. And then he’d dreamed again, and he’d woken in a panic, and the cycle began anew. But here, in Acalin, surrounded by unyielding ice and howling winds, he could finally rest easy.

The second day, the nightmares returned, and he stopped resting.

Instead, he spent it with Teia, deciding it was better to have one nightmare and take it as his cue to get out of bed than it was to try to go back to sleep and risk further terror. Teia was happy he was up and about, and they drifted through the apartment, making sure it was ready for an indefinite stay. When they came back for their yearly two-week visit, they would have family come by to stock the cupboards and clean whatever needed to be cleaned. But this was different, sudden, unplanned. Cori and her brood had done their best to throw together some emergency cleaning and shopping, and they’d done perfectly well, but it was only enough supplies to last a few days. So Ezekian was enlisted to help get blankets and such things set out in their proper places, and Ierian busied himself with giving the kitchen a thorough scrub, and Teia called Daxaeus and Recelius to go shopping with her. The family had staggered their days off, it was explained to him, so there would always be at least one or two of them able to come by without stalling their work too long. Their superiors, of course, didn’t dare challenge requests based on assisting the councilor.

“How are you feeling today?” Daxaeus asked quietly as he helped Ierian put the groceries away.

Ierian hesitated, lifting a carton of cornin eggs out of the bag. _Scared. Tired. My heart wants to collapse in on itself. Like I should retire and never go back to space._

He put the eggs in the fridge and took out the xinin fruit Cori had gathered from the bushes growing outside her apartment complex that summer and deigned to share. He’d make xininvuzat for dessert tonight. Teia loved his xininvuzat.

Daxaeus didn’t pry. Ierian appreciated that.

Teia was happy with dessert. Ierian played with the baby while his wife and nephew and nephew-in-law cleaned up and made small talk about work. Avelias was a sweet nestling, as curious and cheerful as his Callie had been when she was that age. It was nice to spend time with somebody whose vocabulary was only slightly bigger than she was. He wished she would stay small forever, so she’d never learn about what lurked beyond the sky.

* * *

On the third day, his parents came home.

They hugged him at the same time, almost crushing him between them. His cowl felt like it might shake apart from how their subvocals resonated through it in perfect harmony. “My baby, my baby, my baby,” his mother cried against his crest. “I was so scared, _Shayustu,_ I was so scared, I’m so glad you’re okay, the wait’s been _killing me...”_

Xaznuk whined and stamped his feet and paced around them, picking up on their anxiety. Teia had to gently remind them to let Ierian breathe. He would have been okay with them never letting go.

They sat down around the kitchen table. Teia put the kettle on for tea, chatting with Mom about the trip. Dad just watched him pet Xaznuk, head tilted in that particular way he had that meant he’d turned off his hearing aid so he could focus entirely on whoever he was watching. His gaze burned into Ierian’s crest, like it always had. _I’m okay, Dad. I lived. I’m fine._ His jaws stayed shut.

When he finally looked up, unable to stand the silent gaze any longer, Dad motioned for him to put his hands up on the table. Once he had, the signing started. “Are you okay, Eri?”

Ierian paused, looked at his hands, then down at Xaznuk, then back up at Dad, then back to his hands. _Yes, sir. No, sir. I don’t know. I’m trying._ A muscle in his thumb twitched, but his hands stayed still and silent.

Dad waited for a moment, then signaled for him to look at him and tried again. “Is it better in Acalin, getting a break from the Citadel?”

 _Yes. No. I’m not sure. I hope so. I keep having nightmares._ Again he looked at his hands, again they refused to move. Why wouldn’t they move? He’d been signing before he could talk, it should come to him easier than speech, why wouldn’t they move?

Dad’s mandibles drooped. He looked sadder than Ierian could ever remember seeing him. A lump rose in his throat. Dad didn’t _get_ sad. _I’m sorry._

Teia slid into her seat at his left, and Dad turned away, going to sign to her instead. Ierian turned back to Xaznuk. They were going to talk about him, he was sure. They would talk, and Teia would tell Mom and Dad he wasn’t speaking, wasn’t sleeping. They would worry, and Teia would be upset, and he didn’t really know how to deal with that right now.

He didn’t _want_ to upset anyone. He wouldn’t, if he could. He would have been okay staying on the Citadel, going to work, looking his colleagues in the eye and discussing the plans for rebuilding and learning the names of the soldiers who’d given their lives so he could –

A shiver ran down his spine. Xaznuk put his head in his lap, big eyes staring up at him with concern shining in their depths, the fans of longer, striped quills on either side of his head that served as his auditory sensors moving in and out slowly. He took a deep breath, stroked his sister’s pet from head to shoulders, swallowed it back down. No, no, he wouldn’t have been okay with that. He was better off in Acalin. Getting away from that station would be good for him. It would do him no favors to stay there any longer, waiting for it to become a tomb.

Teia shifted in her seat, casually rested a hand on his forearm. His heart beat a little bit less violently.

His parents didn’t ask about what happened. Teia didn’t bring it up. Ierian pet Xaznuk.

* * *

They settled into a routine.

Teia would wake up first. Ierian would wake when she wiggled out of his iron grasp, reluctantly uncurl from around her so she could make kava and let Xaznuk out. He would go back to sleep, and dream about the _Ascension_ groaning and smoking around him, about desperate tries to get in contact with his family, about how his heart stopped and the world around him did, too.

Then he would wake up, make sure his heart was still thumping away, and go to have breakfast with his wife.

She played music to fill the silence. Music, vids, extranet dramas, whatever kept away the oppressing quiet of the monster on both of their minds. The winter holidays were coming up fast, and no region was more aware of it than Tiirtias, with the encroaching polar night and the quickly-lengthening dark hours providing a convenient countdown to the winter solstice and highly-anticipated Festival of Night, so it was more of a struggle for Teia to find an audio feed that _wasn’t_ awash with cheerful, chattering Solstice songs. She liked that. She liked it even more that Ierian’s hand tapped along with the beat.

So they had breakfast, and listened to music, and did the dishes together. Teia would get out her terminal, and they would browse for Solstice gift ideas, her giving him a name to look for while she scrolled through the front page of some retail extranet site, him pointing out anything he saw that they might like. It wasn’t perfect, and he _wanted_ to talk to her, to get excited about the holiday with her, but the words turned to thick paste in his throat, and he simply couldn’t. So he did what he could. She seemed happy that he was participating, at least.

If _it_ had happened just a month and a week later, he wouldn’t have been in its path at all. He would have been safely in Acalin already, for their yearly stay to attend the Festival and spend time with family over the Solstice. They always stayed two weeks: the first week, they pet-sitted Xaznuk and entertained friends they considered trustworthy enough to allow into the more personal of their two nests for a week of seeing the galaxy-renowned Festival and enjoying what a polar winter had to offer; the second, the friends were out and the family was in, for a quieter, more reserved week of enjoying the time with the whole family together and exchanging gifts on the Solstice. If _it_ had happened then, they would have been safe. Ierian, Teia, Callie and her brood, Verres, everyone.

But it hadn’t, and they were home a month early, waiting for the night to swallow the city whole.

The rest of the mornings, they spent on the couch. He would curl up in his spot, and she would crawl in next to him, all but burying herself between him and the back of the couch. Xaznuk liked to climb up with them and flop across their legs. It took a few tries before he realized he should wait for them to spread a blanket over their laps, so his quills wouldn’t prick anywhere unwanted. Ierian let Teia have the remote. It was only fair. She burrowed in close and tucked her head between his shoulder and the lip of his cowl, in the perfect place to turn and nuzzle if she so chose, and wrapped her arms loosely around his torso. He didn’t complain.

She’d had to sit in fear that he wouldn’t come back, and been told the _Ascension_ had survived, only to then hear he’d collapsed and would be taken to the hospital. He wasn’t sure which of them had had it worse. He just knew he wanted her to be as sure as she could possibly be that he was right there with her.

In the afternoons, after a modest lunch and another jaunt outside for Xaznuk, he would get dinner started. Normally, he didn’t bother with meals that took several hours of prep, but in this case, it was calming. Without paperwork or calls to focus on, cooking was something he could pour himself into, forget his problems. It was easier for Teia, too, he expected. She was already used to him not talking when he cooked, he was so easily drawn into what he was doing. It was easier to bear his silence when she already knew it would be there.

So he cooked, and she set up busywork for herself on the kitchen table, just so they would each have company as they worked. She’d found a puzzle somebody had given him one year, hidden away with the rest of the games and toys they kept for the grandkids, and she worked at putting it together. When he had to wait on something to simmer or bake or what have you, he would wander over and help. That made her smile, and he smiled back. Sometimes, he would get a kiss.

In the evenings, they would call their children. They kept it audio-only, so Teia could make up a little white lie about why Ierian wasn’t responding. Areus and Verres were on deployment, and couldn’t convince their superiors to let them come to Acalin at the drop of a hat. But they’d be there soon, they promised. Next week, probably. Calvetorin _could_ get free, but with a two-year-old in tow, travel wasn’t the best idea at the moment, not with C-SEC’s strict post-crisis travel rules. Solstice, definitely. Final Sundown, if at all possible.

Privately, Ierian was glad they couldn’t make it just yet. What would they think of him, their proud father diminished to a shaking leaf who couldn’t so much as grunt out a basic emotional cue? They didn’t deserve to see him like this.

After another quiet couple of hours watching vids or reading together or simply snuggling and breathing in each other’s scents, he and Teia would go back to their room, and brush their teeth and wash their faces and take their showers and do all the little rituals they needed to do before bed. And then they would curl up around each other like to let go of the other would be the gravest of sins, and fall asleep listening to each other breathe. And Ierian would bury his face in the crook of his wife’s neck, wreathing himself in her pulse and her breath and her scent like if he could just surround himself with _her_ enough, she could erase everything that had happened.

* * *

On the eighth day, he realized he only had nightmares after Teia got out of bed. He started getting up when she did. He felt a little less tired.

* * *

His family visited often. Usually his sister, but the rest certainly weren’t strangers. They didn’t stay long, mercifully, just dropped by to bring food and chat for a little while, have some tea, before continuing on with whatever they had to get done that day. There was shopping to be done, winter prep to finish, a baby to care for. He didn’t mind.

Teia did. While he played with the baby or put away whatever gifts he’d been presented with, she chattered, about anything and everything. Workplace gossip, how Avelias was doing, word from other family members further away. Some afternoons, she would take a couple Blackwatch soldiers for security and go out with whoever had visited, leave him behind to entertain himself while she socialized. When they got back, she would tell him how nice it was to get out and do things like a normal Acalinite, rather than the councilor’s wife. He would hug her, and they would lie on the couch while she narrated what she’d done that day, like they would any normal weekday on the Citadel.

On the tenth night, she sighed quietly after finishing her spiel about going out shopping for new clothes for the baby with the nephews. “We had tea at that little cafe a couple blocks down,” she murmured, nuzzling the side of his cowl. “The one that makes the little marrow-cakes you like, remember? I wanted to get you some, but they’d sold out for the day.”

He thrummed a wordless note in his chest, nudged her head with his. _That’s okay. Thank you anyway._ His jaws didn’t move.

Her mandibles moved in and out slowly. She didn’t look at him. “Recelius wanted to know when we’re headed back to the Citadel, and if we’d still be in town for Avelias’s birthday next month. I told him I wasn’t sure.”

A soft, sad sound ballooned in his throat, fought valiantly against the clamp on his windpipe. _I wish I knew. I’m sorry._ The block didn’t budge. He wrapped his arms around her a little tighter.

She shifted position, curled around his torso. “I know you’re still hurting, sunshine, I’m not blaming you. I’m just happy you’re safe.” Gentle nuzzle against his keel. With their cowls touching like this, only separated by the thick knit of their sweaters (Solstice gifts from his father’s parents, dark blue with white geometric patterns and stick-like dazduus for him, red with pink and trees for her), he felt her subvocals more than he heard them. _Sad-worried._ She was quiet for a moment, then whispered, “I was so scared, Eri.”

His tongue lay still and useless at the bottom of his mouth as she continued unprompted. “I – I’d just gotten back, and you’d said you’d be a bit late but home in time for dinner, so I figured I’d go take a shower before I did anything, and...” She choked on a sniffle. “And when I got out the news said you’d been evacuated, and I _tried_ to get in touch, I _did,_ but nothing would _connect,_ I didn’t have any signal, and, and –” Her voice cracked, now high and tremulous. “And I thought you were going to _die_ and I wouldn’t get to say goodbye or tell you I love you or –”

She trailed off into a panicked wail, and he hugged her tight against his chest, rolling onto his side to sandwich her between his body and the back of the couch. He opened his mouth, worked his tongue, took a deep breath.

Nothing came out.

His heart pounded against his ribs. He tried again. Inhale, work mandibles, part jaws.

Again nothing. His wife kept crying. He wanted to cry, too.

His gizzard tied itself into knots, his heart stuttered, his throat closed up even tighter. Why couldn’t he speak? His wife was _sobbing_ in his arms, and the best he could offer was a high whine and distressed trill and rough nuzzle desperate to convey physically what he couldn’t verbally. _What’s wrong with me?_

Xaznuk came scuffling around the side of the couch and jumped up, massive paws sliding off Ierian’s cowl until he was finally able to flop down on top of both of them with a _whumpf._ The pressure must have helped, because Teia’s cries slowly subsided, until she was pulling Ierian as close to her as she could without getting a sweater full of xauu quills. “But, but, but it’s okay now, it’s okay,” she mumbled to herself, subvocals wavering with a valiant effort to force herself not to panic. “We’re, we’re in Acalin, and I don’t have to, I don’t have to worry about you not being home for dinner, you’ll be here, we’re okay, we’re in Acalin and we’re okay and there’s nothing to be afraid of and it’ll be okay, and you have a Pacemaker now and you won’t collapse and your heart won’t give out and –”

She choked again, and Ierian all but buried his face against her neck in the absence of the words that still refused to come. He cooed through his nose, no words, only gentle sound, the best he could do. And as his wife, his Teia, his darling Aediteia who’d stayed with him in the hospital as long as the nurses would let her because she’d _just almost lost him_ and she’d sooner let the claw-fiends take her away than leave his side when she didn’t have to, his sweet starlight who while he’d still been able to do such things had made him _swear_ he’d make it home for dinner every damn day for the rest of his life or face her wrath, as the mother of his children and love of his life whimpered and hugged him for dear life, desperately trying to reassure herself he was real and this was real and she wasn’t dreaming and they were okay and _together_ and _alive,_ he couldn’t help but feel that his best wasn’t good enough.

* * *

On the fifteenth day, he stopped counting the days. Teia was getting clingier. He didn’t mind. He still couldn’t even sign, much less speak. Maybe if he could forget how long they’d been there, he could forget the Citadel, and then he’d stop being broken.


	3. Get Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [chapter title from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy9_KNVkHY0)
> 
>  
> 
>  **the Gil Vizglomi:** Acalin's most famous and revered theater, with rivals of all species across the galaxy; its name, ironically, translates to "Last Chance."  
>  **the Xiy Mnesi:** the sea surrounding the polar continent-nation of Tiirtias on Palaven; its name translates to "Horizon's End."  
>  **zaayestret:** a Palavenian marine reptile found in colder waters, resembling Terran mosasaurs and roughly the size of a pony. Tiirti legend states that the Spirit of the Xiy Mnesi is an enormous zaayestret lying at the very bottom of the ocean, encircling the continent.  
>  **splayfoot:** slang for turians from the polar nation of Tiirtias. references an evolutionary trait of Tiirtis, that of feet that are larger than most turians' and splay out further when they walk in order to more effectively travel across deep snow.  
>  **the Heart:** the Heart of Palaven. where all turian spirits come from, and where they return after they have died and no longer have anything left in the world of the living to linger for.

Ierian couldn’t tell you what possessed him to go outside.

It was snowing. You weren’t supposed to go outside when it snowed in Acalin. You _could_ , but it wasn’t recommended. The snow melting against your body heat would soak you, and the frigid winds would seal your fate. If you had to leave, you should bundle up, layer heavily, make sure somebody knew where you were going and how long you’d be, don’t travel alone, stay where people would be able to see you.

He did most of those things.

Teia was out, visiting with Dad while Mom was at work. Dad adored Teia. She’d taught herself to sign to speak with him even before she and Ierian had ever considered marrying. He loved that. It was good for them to spend some time together. The skies had been clear when she’d accepted his invitation out for kava that morning (Ierian had been invited, too, but he had food in the oven and had to stay behind to wait for it to finish baking), but an hour later clouds were rolling in and the weather report was warning the city to stay indoors, so she’d texted to say they’d go back to Mom and Dad’s to wait it out, she’d be back after the snow stopped, she loved him, keep warm, try to save some cookies for her, happy emoji and three hearts.

And the fire was warm, the snow drifting down outside the windows peaceful, the cookies he’d made still gooey, Xaznuk curled around his back as he ate and watched viral vids his cousins had sent him in an effort to show they still cared even if they couldn’t make it to Acalin comforting. So he couldn’t tell you why, when the cookie plate was empty and his attention had drifted from vids to clickbait quizzes, he suddenly got to his feet, extinguished the fireplace, and put on his gear to go outside.

Tunic and pants, foot insulation, thin gloves, scarf, knit sweater, thicker gloves, lined boots, thick wrap skirt, shawl, headscarf, heavy lined cloak to go over it all. Cloak hood up over the headscarf, dazduus quills stripped of their metal coats brushing against his plates. It was the warmest thing he owned, impenetrable even by the fiercest of polar storms. A light flurry wouldn’t even bother him. Xaznuk looked on with the eyes of an animal smart enough to think its two-legged friends were stupid.

Ezekian and the two Blackwatch guards bringing up the rear didn’t seem happy, but they followed without complaint.

Trebia had sunk below the horizon proper and not come back up several would-be sunrises ago, but they still had another week or so before the last of its light disappeared entirely. When the skies were clear, they had a few hours around midday when the sky was lighter, but right now the thick clouds meant there was nothing but the inky blackness of night, Ierian’s path lit only by streetlamps and storefronts. But it was a different darkness from the eternal twilight of the Wards. The clouds reflected the city’s light back at it, lit from below to be more a surly gray than truly black, the uneven bottom surface an odd comfort after infinite nothingness. It was a familiar darkness, a comfortable darkness, a darkness where the worst thing lurking in its depths was an opportunity to curl up by the fire with his wife. It wouldn’t hurt him.

The sidewalks were blissfully empty except for a small handful of drifters like himself. Harried shoppers, pet owners urging their companions to make it quick, one or two simply walking in the snow. They were few and far between, leaving him to tromp through the powder in contented silence. There was no snow on the Citadel, no wind. It was cold, but not _too_ cold, never dipping below a faint chill. There was no _weather._ He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it. The snowflakes dancing and spinning as they fell past his eyes, the chill wrapping itself around him, the crunch of older snow beneath his boots, the fog puffing out of his mouth with each exhale, the faint breeze nipping at his nose with promises of the blizzard sure to come – there was something oddly soothing about it, _welcoming,_ like the Spirit of the tundra itself quietly rejoicing in the return of its native son.

The world was muted as they walked, snow muffling even the skycar traffic above to a low murmur. Ierian hadn’t had a destination in mind – spirits, he hadn’t even had _a walk_ in mind – so he just let his feet decide where to go, turning where he felt like he should, looking at the ground rather than any signs. Xaznuk padded along loyally beside him, quills clinking pleasantly with each plodding step. If not for the obvious security detail following them, they could have been anyone, simply an old man and his xauu, wandering in the snow.

He and Teia had chosen, completely by accident, an apartment situated squarely between Acalin’s theater district and the docks. “Head one way and catch a show, head the other and catch dinner,” Ierian had joked years ago when they’d been moving in and Teia had excitedly spotted the distinctive lights of the Gil Vizglomi out the window. With how dark the city around him was, it came as no surprise to him when the wind brought with it salty sea-spray and the faint, lonely clang of the buoy bell. When he was young, he could have followed the signs of the sea from across the city. Some nights, when he stayed up so late he started getting introspective, he thought he could smell and hear and _feel_ them on the Citadel, calling him home.

As a child, he’d been told to be careful around the water, as falling in would mean almost certain death. The water was too cold, and his body too poorly-insulated. Even his grandmother, a fisher herself, warned him and his sister to treat the sea with respect and a healthy amount of fear. The Spirit of the Xiy Mnesi was a fickle thing, she said, and didn’t suffer fools gladly. But something about the scent in the air and call on the wind had his heart lifting, his stride lengthening, his shoulders squaring as he was seized with the need to _see it,_ to set eyes on what the Citadel so painfully lacked.

His feet knew the way better than he did. It felt like barely any time at all had passed before he was standing across the street from Icebreaker’s Wharf, where the tradespeople’s ships docked, the fishers and tugboats and cable-layers and, at the very end of the wharf, the two great icebreakers that gave it its name, their lights on and crew barely visible scurrying about on-deck, waiting for the weather to move on so they could go out and clear the freshly-hidden paths. Ierian stood stock-still, drinking in the sight like at any moment it might disappear in the falling snow, mandibles pulled tight to his face as he etched every detail onto his heart and ancient memories stirred in its depths. There was the sign politely directing tourists back to their own dock, full of cruise ships and yachts and summer schooners. How many times had it been replaced over the years, defaced regularly as it was by bored teenagers, himself included back in the day? Over there was the little tavern where brine-soaked sailors and fishers and dock workers would warm themselves over hot drinks and hearty food after a long day out at sea, swapping stories that were only mostly exaggerated, where he and his friends, young and eager to explore the world beyond the ice, would huddle in the corner and listen to their wild tales with stars in their eyes. And there, the modest little shrine to the Spirit where those same tavern patrons would make offerings and ask for safe travels before setting out the next morning, where his grandmother had taught him to bow his head and thank the Xiy Mnesi for feeding his family for another day.

And beyond all that, the sea itself, choppy in the wind but not churning, not quite yet.

The snow clinging to the edge of his hood’s lining and the wind buffeting his head faded away, and he crossed the street as if in a trance, his marmat’s words all those years ago echoing in his mind as his hand lifted to trace the wet rope guards.

“ _Our cradle and our grave, our mother and our executioner, our beginning and our end,”_ she had intoned, quiet but sure. He’d thought it strange how soft her voice had become, back then, so used to her gruff barks and thunderous bellows on the docks he’d been. _“Great Spirit of the Xiy Mnesi, we ask for your blessing as we trawl your home, your protection as we sail to the ends of the world and back again.”_ She’d placed a hand on his head then, and as the pier creaked beneath his boots he thought he could feel the ghost of its weight atop his crest. _“Your aid as we teach our young that which those who leave these skies so quickly forget.”_

This time of day, in this kind of weather, Marmat would be out on her boat, the _Windswept Demipal_ , hauling in everything she could before the weather got worse and ruined her. When Ierian was small, she’d led the local union of polar fishers and controlled Icebreaker’s Wharf, a powerhouse of a rough-and-tumble, no-nonsense crestless. By the time he’d grown, moved out, had children, had those children move out themselves, she’d passed her mantle to one of his cousins who’d shown interest, and to his knowledge was happy with her decision, retiring to fish the polar waters for her own happiness rather than to feed anyone more than herself and the tall, reedy husband she’d named her boat for. He squinted out to sea, knowing full well he wouldn’t see anything in this weather but some part of him still wanting to _try._

His hand came up to rest at the foot of the little shrine, a simple thing, a stone zaayestret curled around a disc with its tail covering the tip of its nose. _Great Spirit, I ask little. I ask for my family to be fed, my home to be safe, and my grandmother to return_.

The air in his throat didn’t shape itself into words, but his chest eased slightly, some knot he hadn’t been fully conscious of loosening. He turned and padded back to the street, a half-formed idea sluggishly stirring in the fog in his head.

His grandparents had lived in the same small, modest little house at the end of the lane two blocks down from the wharf for as long as he could remember. Marpat was an accomplished neurologist, he could easily have gotten them something more lavish, something like what people expected a doctor of his caliber to live in. But the Sparatuses were a modest sort, Tiirtis through and through – if they didn’t _need_ more, they didn’t _want_ more. Even Ierian and Teia’s penthouse on the Citadel had been a spur-of-the-moment splurge, several years after Ierian had become councilor and their youngest had left the nest, prompted mostly by the old owner putting the place up right at the same time Ierian and Teia had started looking for somewhere new to move into. The old flat they’d had since they’d moved to the station had suited them perfectly fine, if a bit cramped with two adults and three children, and then five adults as the kids got older and went off to basic; really, they wouldn’t have been in the market for a new place if the building hadn’t changed hands and the new landlord proven himself to be lazy and more interested in the money than in actually doing anything to earn it. Marpat and Marmat were just as content to stay in their little one-story with the anchor in the window and the _BEWARE OF WIFE_ sign above the doorbell, no matter how often friends tried to tell them they should move somewhere grander. _“Whadda we need more space fer,”_ Marpat would protest in his heavy accent with its emphasized vowels and rounded-off words. _“Two old splayfoots, kids all gone, just a fisher’n a tired ol’ man sleepin’ by_ _da_ _fire. Don’t need nottin’ fancy, just enough fer_ _da_ _two’f us’n whoever wants t_ _a_ _drop by fer kava, doncha know.”_

And then he would grumble and huffily push his giant glasses back up to where they were supposed to sit, and Marmat would scold him for being cranky with guests, and he’d complain some more, and she’d laugh at him while stoking the fire before sitting down in her rocking chair beside his, the way she had every time Marpat had ever had anything small and insignificant and not really worth getting worked up over to mutter darkly about when Ierian was young. He and Coracia had always giggled over it, and every time, he swore he could see Marpat’s mandibles lift. It wasn’t until Ierian had his own grandchildren hanging on his every word and thinking his old-married-couple squibbles with Teia were the funniest thing in the galaxy that he understood why.

As Ierian plodded up the front walk he used to count the stones in when he was sitting on the front step on a summer evening waiting for his parents to get off work, he could see a faint orange glow in the living room window. Marpat was awake, then. He rarely dozed with the fire going when Marmat was out, unless he had guests over. _“It don’t matter how fancy da tech get,”_ he’d told his grandchildren once while tending the blaze. _“Ya don’t pass out in fronta da fire alone. Tech’ll fail, ’n den ya gotcherself a big ol’ fire where y_ _er_ _house used ta be.”_

Xaznuk came up to sit by his feet as he pressed the doorbell. No sound rang out – it was connected to Marpat’s omni-tool to buzz and ding when it went off, in case he was asleep or couldn’t hear very well. A gift from Amulitus. He’d grumbled about it, of course, as surly old drakes were wont to do, but even he couldn’t deny how often he didn’t notice the bell and left guests standing out in the cold without ever realizing they were there.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case today. After a couple minutes, the old wood door cracked open and a single blue-green eye peered out from behind a lens so big it overshot the edges of the surrounding plates by nearly half a talon-length. The eye squinted, then the door opened wider. “Eri?” his grandfather clicked, subvocals humming _pleased-surprised._ He leaned to one side to look past him, then nodded to himself and stepped aside, holding the door open wider. “Well, come on in, get on outta da cold. Tell yer guards to come in, too, no point’n dem turnin’ ta icicles. Can’t well guard too good all froze, doncha know. Hullo, Xaznuk.”

Ierian glanced over his shoulder and motioned Ezekian and the Blackwatch soldiers to follow him inside, then turned and trundled in after Xaznuk. “Hang up ya cloaks over da radiator dere,” Marpat told the guards as they came in behind him. “It’ll dry ’em out real quick.”

It was an easy, familiar routine. Cloak and headscarf and both sets of gloves over the radiator, boots on the floor beside it, skirt and shawl and scarf on the rack near the fireplace, ass in chair, hands around the chipped mug of kava Marpat poured from the kettle sitting on the table next to his and set on the coaster closest to Ierian. It was the same thing he’d done since he was thirty years old and fresh out of mandatory, visiting his grandparents to sit in front of the fire and chat about his upcoming bar exam and the enticing job offer from the government and the pair of glittering golden eyes that hung on his every word as they chatted over lunch. Nothing had changed in forty-six years. His grandparents were retired, and he’d done so well after passing the bar with flying colors hewas the _councilor_ , and eyes over lunch had become a voice in the dark and a scent wreathing itself around him every morning when he woke up and pulled Teia a little bit closer rather than getting out of bed, and he had children who’d grown up and had chicks of their own, and his face was as faded now as Marpat’s had been back then, but the way he was welcomed and invited in and sat down in his Marmat’s chair with a mug of kava and a purring fire was all the same. No matter what changed, home stayed the same.

Marpat directed the guards to sit at the kitchen table and asked how they took their kava and offered them some of the spice cake he’d been grazing on all day. A _please_ danced on Ierian’s tongue, but it wasn’t necessary. Marpat brought him a slice on a small plate anyway. “That’s yer dad’s, Eri, brought some over last night, doncha know, said’e’d made anodder loaf for you’n Teia, she’ll’a gotten that dis mornin’, I reckon,” he rambled as he set the plate down on the table by the lamp. “Di’n’t tink I gotta ask’f ya wanted any, I know ya like yer dad’s cookin’.”

Thanks tickled the inside of his throat, then died. He ducked his head gratefully instead. Marpat eyed him as he made himself comfortable in his own chair, then heaved a sigh. “Now,” he mused, pulling his worn old quilt over his legs and picking up his knitting from the table, “Meana told me ya’ve been awful quiet as of late.”

Ierian stiffened, just a fraction. Marpat’s accent had dropped slightly, his words more enunciated, his voice more deliberate. It was a serious voice, the way he spoke when he decided it truly _mattered_ he be understood. He’d used that voice a lot more when he was still working, when he was Dr. Virian Sparatus, galaxy-famous neurologist who’d written papers and won awards and was specially requested for high-profile cases because the Empire trusted nobody else, not when he was Ierian’s Marpat, stern-faced but warm-hearted old man who weaved pictures with words and let his grandchildren stay up an extra hour if they promised not to tell their parents and waited patiently every day for his wife to come home from the sea. When Ierian lifted his kava to take a sip, he risked a glance up at him, and it was Dr. Virian looking back, the gleam of calculating intelligence behind glasses that made his eyes look three times their true size. He looked back into the liquid.

He took a few silent sips, then settled the mug back down in his lap, staring listlessly into the fire. Marpat waited, and they sat in silence for a few moments, only the cheerful crackle of the fire (a real wood fire, not gas like at home, wood and smoke and brick and a chimney to vent it all outside) and the muted murmurs of the guards off in the kitchen keeping the entire house from settling into unnerving quiet. After a while, Marpat sighed quietly, and his knitting needles started clicking away. “I can’t say I blame ya,” he hummed, now looking down at his work. “I’m no psychiatrist, but I worked with my fair share’f ’em, sortin’ out the physical aspect of the psychological, an’ all. I know better’n most how trauma can change a man.”

Words welled up in Ierian’s throat, got stuck once more. What was he supposed to say? _It haunts me. I can’t sleep without going back. I can’t tell Teia, I don’t want her to have nightmares, too._ His grip tightened on his mug. _I didn’t want to die._ He watched the fire, its warm tendrils dancing and beckoning him to get lost in their depths.

Marpat apparently took his silence as an answer in and of itself. _Click, click, click,_ went his knitting needles, steady and sure. Another quiet sigh. “Y’know, I had a conversation once with a colleague’a mine. He was visiting Acalin from… Oh, somewhere on Digeris, I think it was. We was chattin’ over lunch, an’ he says to me, he says, ‘Virian,’ he says, ‘Virian, somethin’s been buggin’ me ’bout dis city’a yours since I touched down, an’ I think I just figured it out.’ And I look at ’im, an’ I ask, ‘Well, how d’you mean?’ An’ he says, ‘Acalin is unstuck in time. We’ve got bases on the moons an’ colonies beyond our star, but ya’d never guess lookin’ at Acalin. Ya walk down the shoppin’ district an’ ya got electronics shops next to animal feed stores, with turians in traditional clothing made’a real animal hide walking around like dey ain’t never heard’a synth-fabric. Whole city’s like a time capsule from back when the world was flat’n the spirits was just about gods.’ And I look at him, and I say, ‘Herenarius,’ I say, ‘here we are workin’ on literal brain science, and I think that’s the smartest thing you’ve said since I metcha.’”

He exhaled noisily, then hummed as he continued, “Ya know why Acalin was the last to fall when the Cipritinians got a bug up deir asses to conquer the planet, Eri?” He didn’t wait for the answer. Ierian didn’t have one, anyway. “It’s ’cause time passes funny here. Comes with the sun bein’ the way it is dis far north. Dey didn’t wanna mess with us, ’cause we’d adapted, an’ dey hadn’t. An’ when the time came, an’ we was all that was left ’tween dem’n domination, we lasted as long as we did ’cause we knew how the seasons worked. Dey thought dey’d get the drop on us by comin’ in the winter, when Trebia was below the horizon.” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Froze to death, the lot of ’em. That’s what we knew that dey didn’t. When the night comes, ya sit and ya wait for the sun to come back. Ya hunt, ya tell stories, ya sleep with yer wife by the fire, ya do whatcha gotta to survive ’til the darkness is gone again. And _then_ ya crush your enemies beneath yer feet.”

He set his needles down to take a sip of kava. Another sigh, heavier this time. “When I was young,” he began, slowly now, “an’ did my time withthe military, ’f anything happened, dey told us to pick ourselves up’n dust ourselves off. ‘Yer an adult now,’ dey’d say. ‘Claws out.’ _Bah._ ” He snorted and clicked his teeth together. “Maybe that works down south, but us?” He shook his head. “We’re Tiirtis, through and through. We’re born with snow on our feet’n frost on our claws. No matter where we go, no matter how hot it gets, the ice will always be where we belong. Maybe the south can jump back up like it’s nothing, but we’re born knowing how to survive the winter. When things get dark, we hunker down and wait for the light.”

Ierian’s mandibles were taut, his hands gripping his mug so tight he was surprised it didn’t break. Xaznuk was looking at him with worry in his big, blue eyes. Marpat fell silent again, taking another drink, then nearly startled Ierian out of his plates with another, _“Bah,”_ and a shake of his head. “Ya didn’t come all this way to listen to yer marpat ramble like he’s finally lost it. Us old folks, y’know, we just like the sounds’f our own voices.” He waved a hand. “Don’t mind me.”

Ierian wasn’t listening, or at least not processing what he said. The fire’s hypnotic dance now seemed sinister, a warning, a _reminder._ A reminder of engines failing and engineers panicking and biotic fields desperately trying to contain the problem, of cruisers and frigates and fighters beyond the viewports going up in smoke and down in flames quickly snuffed out by the vacuum as emergency fields meant to contain the interior atmosphere in a hull breach overexerted and failed, of debris and screams and bodies, so many bodies –

“I almost died.”

His own voice took him by surprise, barely a whisper, hoarse and unused and so full of _pain_ , sound where previously had only been silence so startling he didn’t even believe he’d made it at first. But Xaznuk picked his head up, and Marpat raised his own head, so it _had_ to have been him.

He swallowed, ran his tongue around his mouth. It _hurt_ to use his voice after so long of not. But those three little words had broken whatever dam had set itself up in his throat, and he couldn’t stop more from flowing out of him. “I almost died, and nobody cared, everyone just wanted to rush right into the aftermath. The ship was on fire, we almost went down, I went into _cardiac arrest_ , but all that mattered to anybody was what I thought of the Alliance saving us.” His voice grew stronger with every word, every emotion he hadn’t been able to express properly coming back to him as quickly as his words. “I don’t care, I don’t care, _I don’t care,_ _ **I almost died, I DON’T CARE!”**_

The final repetition tore out of his chest with a roar that had Xaznuk jumping to his feet and the guards scrambling somewhere behind him. _That felt good._ He couldn’t roar on the Citadel, not if he wanted to get any work done without a plague of reporters asking why he’d thought it necessary to raise his voice. “I can’t be expected to just jump right back into work like that! They didn’t allow me any time to recover! I had to go to the hospital, I got a _pacemaker_ installed, but did anybody care? No, of course not! I’m only _the councilor!_ A _public servant!_ I’m _supposed_ to be at their beck and call, my own health be damned! Who needs it! I was getting calls _in the hospital,_ asking what I planned to do about the Alliance, and the damage to the Citadel, and the geth. I don’t care! I’m in the hospital, you insensitive, callous _freaks!_ I care about my _medication_ and my _family,_ grow some spirits-damned _compassion_ and leave me alone!”

He was panting. His throat burned, the rasp in his voice downright agonizing. He hesitated, then ducked his head in an apology for shouting and looked to his grandfather. “May I please have some water?” he asked meekly.

Marpat’s mandibles were up. “Welcome back, Councilor.”

While he got up and went to fulfill the request, Ierian looked back at his hands and took a few deep breaths. _Breathe, Eri._ _Just breathe._ Xaznuk came over to rest his head in his lap, and he obligingly scratched him behind the quill-fans.

Warmth blossomed in his chest as what he’d done finally processed. He’d _spoken._ Not only had he spoken, but he’d _gotten mad_ and _yelled_ and _cursed._ Teia would be _ecstatic._ Spirits, _he_ was ecstatic. He wasn’t broken. He could still speak. He could still feel something other than fear and guilt and sadness. _He wasn’t broken._

Marpat hobbled back and traded him the glass of water for his kava, gently setting the latter down on the table before returning to his own chair. “So,” he hummed, neatly arranging his quilt over his legs, “sounds like ya’ve gotta lot on yer mind.”

Ierian drank greedily, almost polishing off the entire glass in one go before he stopped to breathe. Then he lowered it to his lap and stared at his hands for a moment, mandibles working in small circles as his brain reached for controls covered in dust. “There was so much smoke,” he murmured finally, chest tightening at the memory. “The engines were failing. I couldn’t breathe. They were trying to get the backups up and running, but it was taking too long. The entire ship was filling up. The medical crew distributed masks, but I’d already breathed in so much...” His hands flexed around the glass and he closed his eyes as a shudder wracked his body. _Pounding and pounding and stuttering and stuttering and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, until nothing, no pounding no stuttering no tightening just stillness and falling and crashing to the floor –_

He shook himself again, a little more violently, to push the memory out of his head. Heart problems ran in the family, Mom had told him. Marpat would understand.

Thankfully, the old man did. He gave a small, sympathetic nod and coaxed, “That combined with the stress, I’m sure.”

Ierian nodded, grateful for the segue. “We were… We could see other ships going down, outside the viewports. They were falling so _easily._ The geth tore through them like practice drones. We couldn’t...” The words caught in his throat. He swallowed, took another sip of water, tried again. His voice trembled. “Reporters wanted to know what we would do to honor the fallen, if we would memorialize them at all. We heard them over comm as they went down. I’m going to hear them in my dreams for the rest of my life.”

He paused to collect himself. There was more, so much more, but some things he simply couldn’t say. That ship, that awful _ship,_ sleek black hull and eerie blue lights and how looking at it made his head hurt and how it seemed to _pulse_ with the strange feeling it gave off, like needles prickling his brain to make holes for tendrils to force their way in. How did he say that? How could he say anything that even remotely captured the horror, the dawning realization of what was happening? _Saying it makes it real._

He took a deep breath. _Something else. Talk about something else._ “I tried to call Teia. I don’t… I don’t know what I would have said. I was so afraid, I just wanted to hear her voice. But something was jamming comms to the station, I couldn’t get a signal through. I thought...” He choked on the words trying to come out. Swallow, drink, repeat. “The more ships that went down, the more things that went wrong, the more I realized...” Again he choked, but around a whimpering cry. He took a moment to close his eyes, cover his face with one hand, breathe deep. When he spoke, it came out barely more than a whisper. “I realized I might very well die without being able to tell my family good-bye.”

Marpat nodded slowly, encouragingly. “Ya’ve been through a lot,” he soothed. “Things no sapient being should ever have ta live through, weight nobody should hafta bear. ’s not fair for the galaxy to badger ya so incessantly, no matter the answers dey might want. Not so publicly, at the very least. Some things’re best saved fer one-on-one, not news conferences beamed to every vidscreen among the stars.”

The knot in Ierian’s chest that had loosened at the Spirit’s shrine came a little more undone. He raised his head, his mandibles going with it ever so slightly. Then Marpat continued, “But it i’n’t fair to yerself to hold that burden alone,neither. If turians was meant to go it alone, we’da never come together to forge our world. Holding it in only hurts yerself.”

Ierian flinched, turned away, looked at the floor. “I know,” he mumbled. “I… I _wanted_ to talk about it with Teia. She hasn’t been taking it well. She pretends she’s alright, but I know her. She’s worried about me, especially since I haven’t been talking. She’s jumpier, clingier. I don’t… I’m not _ready_ to tell her my end of things.”

Marpat nodded again. “In time, maybe. The wound’s still raw for both of ya.”

Ierian nodded to himself, taking another sip of water. He was silent for a while, mulling over everything that had been festering inside for the past month and a half since that horrible day. The fire, the smoke, the fear, the death. Teia. He exhaled slowly, gently. “I’m still afraid,” he all but whispered to his thumb-claws. “I can’t – I don’t want to go back. I don’t know if I ever will. When I sleep, I’m back on that ship, and everyone is dying around us, and...” He took a moment to steady his breathing. “Some nights the geth get us. Shepard doesn’t open the relay in time for the Alliance to save us, and the ship explodes, or they make a hole in the hull and the emergency fields can’t maintain pressure and we suffocate in the vacuum. Other nights, my heart stops again, but they can’t...” Shaky inhale, eyes clenched shut. “They can’t start it again. Shepard opens the relay and everyone is safe, but I die on the floor of the _Ascension_ because my heart couldn’t take it.”

Marpat lowed quietly. “Those ones’re the worst, I take it.”

“Yes.” He traded the empty water glass for his kava and wrapped his hands securely around its comforting warmth. “I wake up when the ship explodes, or when it depressurizes. But when my heart stops, I…” He swallowed. “I can’t wake up. I leave my body, and I watch as they try to bring me back, but they can’t.”

More shaky breathing. Xaznuk whined and pressed his nose against Ierian’s hand. Marpat waited patiently. After a moment, he took a deep breath, then confessed, “Sometimes, I’m not sure if I’m really alive at all. Sometimes I wonder if I _did_ die for good, and everything that’s happened since has been the Heart trying to ease the pain of the realization.”

He quickly raised his kava to his mouth to let that sink in. While the mug was still hot, the liquid inside had cooled a fair amount, and was starting to make bedroom eyes at “lukewarm” when he took a sip. That was fine. He needed something to occupy his face other than words.

When Marpat spoke again, it was slow and sure, choosing his words carefully. “Well,” he said, “the way I see it. If this’s all just a dream to help ya accept death, wouldn’t itta ended once ya started wondering if it was a lie?”

Ierian paused to mull this over, taking another sip of kava as Marpat continued, “Ya wake up once ya realize a dream’s a dream, doncha? So if this’s all a dream, why haven’t ya woke up yet?”

Ierian considered, idly petting Xaznuk with one hand. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he admitted to the xauu.

Marpat snorted, subvocals humming good-naturedly. “’s ’cause yer still young yet. Once ya get to my age, ya start gettin’ outta bed wonderin’ if yer body’s gonna come with ya today.” He laughed a wheezy little laugh, and Ierian’s mandibles lifted slightly. That was another thing Ierian supposed would never change. He was seventy-six years old, but compared to his grandparents, he was barely out of the cowl, and they would always love to remind him of it.

Marpat chortled to himself a bit more, then sighed contentedly and pulled up his omni-tool to check the chrono. “Well, now, I suppose we ain’t gonna solve all yer problems in one afternoon,” he declared, “but I like to think I helped a bit. Your marmat’ll be home in about an hour, so why’n’tcha stay ’til she gets back, so’s you can take some’a whatever she caught and bring back some dinner for that little beauty of yers. Apologize for worrying her, an’ all. Text her first, so she knows where ya are. And help yerself to more kava. It’s gonna be winter outside soon enough, but no point in lettin’ yer heart think it’s already here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you weren't able to puzzle it out from the excessive "doncha know"s, ierian's marpat/virian's accent sounds like an EXTREMELY heavy minnesotan accent
> 
> fun fact: that's also how ierian sounds when he gets so mad he forgets to speak like somebody who neither is from acalin nor has heard of tiirtias


	4. Still Breathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [chapter title from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaHVKqed4ic)
> 
> brief cameo of Torch thanks to [brisbydaniels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brisbydaniels/pseuds/brisbydaniels) uwu

Teia fidgeted with the puzzle piece in her hand, turning it over and over as she looked at the rest of the puzzle without really seeing it. _Where is he?_ Ierian’s text had said he’d come home after his grandmother got back with the day’s catch in an hour and they divvied it up to share. That had been an hour and a half ago. The snow had let up enough for her to head back to their apartment maybe twenty minutes later. Where was Calvetana? How long did it take for her to come in to port, to split up a day’s catch with her grandson? Where was her husband?

The vidscreen chattered across the coffee table from her. She’d moved the puzzle to the living room so she could watch something, _anything,_ just as long as it made noise to keep her company. She took a deep breath. _Don’t panic, Tei._ He’d said he’d taken Xaznuk out for a walk. Maybe the xauu just wanted the scenic route on the way back. Or Calvetana had had a bigger catch than usual and had to take a little longer to haul it all in. Or they’d gotten distracted with conversation. Or Ierian _had_ started back, but then gotten sidetracked. By Xaznuk, or by something in a store window, or by the sky, or by an assailant –

Some spirit must have decided to take pity on her before that train of thought could get too far, because that’s when she heard the front door open with a cheerful chime. The Blackwatch guards offered respectful, “Good evening, sir”s, and heavy pawsteps thundered inside. Her heart soared as she turned to look over the couch and see, sure enough, her husband shrugging off his cloak to hang up. _Thank the spirits._

 _Where have you been_ and _welcome back_ warred for the privilege of leaving her throat, then died as she remembered Ierian’s silence. There was no point in saying anything if he wasn’t going to respond. She turned back to the puzzle and the detective show playing on the vidscreen.

Rummaging, rustling, rumpling. That’d be his winter gear. He needed a new set of boots, she’d noticed a week ago when they went out to get more herbs and spices for the cupboards, but he was stubborn. _Tiirtis._ Practical to a fault, her brother-in-law had informed her when she’d first met the family. Came with the resource scarcity so far north. Never threw anything out until it was threadbare and only barely functional, and even then you’d think replacing it caused them physical pain from the look in their eyes. Maybe if she got him into the store, he’d pick out a new pair without complaint. _Ha._ That’d be the day. Even the way he’d been lately, Ierian could still make it plenty clear what he thought of what was going on.

Xaznuk _rouf_ ed, and there was a faint _ting_ of metal against glass. The treat jar on the table by the kitchen entrance. Ierian was a sucker, and the big xauu knew it.

More padding, more footsteps. Motion out of the corner of her eye, and she turned to face her husband with arms outstretched and a relieved upward tilt of her mandibles as he slid easily up against her. She hugged him close and nuzzled under his jaw, a quiet purr building in her chest. “Welcome home,” she murmured against his throat. It felt better to say something, even if he wouldn’t –

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

She froze. It was so quiet she thought maybe it was the vidscreen, or a hallucination. She was stressed, and sad, and traumatized, it wasn’t unreasonable to say maybe she’d hallucinate him talking back to her, right? She pulled away slightly, just enough to look him in the eyes, mandibles dropping and subvocals quavering _disbelief-caution-hope._ “Ierian?”

He rumbled quietly, touched his frontal plate to hers. “Hi, Teia.”

His voice was rough, like he was still getting used to it, but unmistakable. She raised trembling hands to cup his face, searching his eyes for any sign this might be a dream. “You spoke.”

He purred rustily. “I spoke,” he confirmed, closing his eyes and nuzzling into the touch.

For once, Teia didn’t have words. She stared up at her husband with quivering mandibles and breath caught in her throat, the gears in her brain spinningwithout touching. Thumbs brushed plates, traced tattoos on the right side, old scars on the left, pathways she’d memorized in the peace of their bedroom after they reluctantly separated and he was looking at her like a spirit had crossed the Veil to grace him with his presence. “ _Ierian_ ,” she breathed, his name the only word playing in her head.

He click-whistled softly, opening his eyes again. They swam with a chaotic mess of emotions to match the subvocals gently caressing her arms as they rested against his cowl. _Apology-love-sadness._ “I’m so sorry, starlight,” he murmured against her hand. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

A lump rose in her throat. “I know, sunshine,” she choked out. “I don’t blame you.”

A slow sigh warmed her hand. “I love you so much.”

Her mandibles quivered, and she finally gave in to the instinct that had been building in her chest and pulled him against her as tight as she could. She buried her head at the base of his neck and sang _relieved-adoring-ecstatic_. “I missed your voice so much,” she cried. “I love you, I love you, I missed you, I’m so glad you came back to me.”

His arms wrapped around her, slow but secure, hugging her tight against his chest as he nuzzled the top of her head again. She could hear, practically _feel,_ his own whimpering cry building in his throat as he told her with a trembling voice, “I swear on the Heart, I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

“Here, Mom, I’ve got it.”

The stack of dirty dishes was lifted out of Teia’s hands before she could protest, and she made a token frown at her eldest before smiling. “Thank you, dear,” she cooed, stretching up to nuzzle Areus under the chin. She had no idea where her sons _got_ their size. They were both taller than Ierian, and it wasn’t fair. But at least she’d raised them well enough to help their tiny mother with getting things down from the top shelf.

He purred and shifted the plates to one hand so he could give her a tight side-hug, then nudged her towards the living room. “Dad’s getting swarmed. You might wanna go save him real quick, Casbius is getting too big to be climbing on grown-ups.”

“Oh, pushing Mom out of the kitchen, I see how it is,” she teased, grabbing her shawl off the hook and shrugging it on nonetheless. “Don’t throw out the hooves by the stove, your dad wants to save them for lunch tomorrow.”

Areus gasped quietly as he lowered the dishes onto the counter by the sink. “Ooh, stuffed dazduus hooves? Do we get to personalize them any? I want some of the liver in mine.”

“I’ll put a request in for you,” she assured him, waving as she drifted out of the kitchen.

The main room was crowded with lazy, contentedly stuffed turians of all ages. Her parents-in-law had claimed one couch, Meana’s parents the other. At their ages, they were given the most comfortable spots out of respect, though Teia suspected the fact that they usually just got there first also contributed. Her daughter and the two daughters-in-law lounged on the floor leaned against the couches, chatting idly as they watched a cooking competition show on the vidscreen. Avelias, having only barely mastered walking without stumbling every few steps, was still too small to play with the older children, so she sat contentedly in her great-grandmother’s lap, putting her little hands all over Meana’s face as she explored (to the older broody’s obvious delight). Daxaeus and Recelius were over by the window, the former leaned up against the wall while the latter stood a step away, adoringly watching his daughter bond with her parsaemat. Verres sat by the fireplace, sharing a blanket with his girlfriend; Torch, being from Omega, was far from cold-resistant, so cuddling by the fire with her space heater of a boyfriend was the natural choice for where they should sit.

And in the middle of it all, her Ierian stood proud, mandibles high with glee and entire _being_ glowing with the light she’d fallen in love with, his grandchildren hanging off him with excited chatter. Two-year-old Noviteia climbing on the back of his cowl, four-year-old Kaevus clinging to his hip spur, seven-year-old Casbius hanging from his arm, and his seventy-six-year-old body holding all of them up like it was nothing, only just hunched over enough so little Novi wouldn’t be in danger if she lost her grip. Their high, giggling squeals punctuated his deeper, hearty laugh, every now and then cut off by a playful challenge to _do your worst, mercenary scum._

After the past couple of months, she wanted to record that sound and play it on loop for the rest of her life.

He caught sight of her as she walked up behind his parents, and no Solstice gift could have made her happier than the happy look in his eyes. “Look, there’s Parmat,” he chirred to the older two, breaking eye contact so he could turn to look at them. “Your papa will probably be out soon, why don’t you go sit with your mom for presents?”

Casbius and Kaevus froze, then released their grandfather with excited gasps and skittered over to Sivia, squawking at each other as they snuggled up against their mother. Teia chuckled to herself and rounded the couch as Ierian slowly straightened up, arms behind him to catch Novi before she could slide off and move her to his hip. “‘Mercenary scum?’” she teased, gently placing a hand on his bicep.

He purred affectionately, lifting Novi up to nuzzle her. “Casbius’s idea,” he explained, one mandible higher than the other. “Mercenaries trying to take down the dread prosecutor.”

“I _see_ ,” she cooed, leaning against him and resting her head on his shoulder. Casbius had been enamored with Ierian’s job and record as a lawyer since he’d been old enough to understand what they meant. “That one’s going to follow in your footsteps, just you watch.”

“Spirits, I hope not,” he grumbled, shifting so he could drape that arm around her back. “I think one councilor in the family tree is enough. At least during _my_ lifetime, anyway.”

She laughed, and waited for him to set Novi down to toddle back to her mothers before stretching up to plant a gentle kiss on his mandible. “How are you feeling?” she murmured, resting one hand on his waist.

He hummed, deep in his chest, and nudged her head with his. “I’m doing fine,” he assured her. “I’m not about to let any old bad thoughts stop me from enjoying Solstice.”

She clicked her mandibles against her jaw, studying his face. He’d made progress in leaps and bounds in the two weeks since he’d started talking again. She still didn’t know what he’d talked about with his grandfather, or _why_ he’d suddenly found his voice, but she wasn’t about to complain. He still trembled whenever the Citadel and the inevitability of going back came up, and he certainly didn’t like being alone, but he was talking, _laughing_ again, picking her up and dancing with her again. He was her sunshine again, just with a few clouds here and there.

There must have been something in her eyes, because he lifted a hand to brush along her shoulder. “It’s okay, starlight,” he murmured. Even at such a low volume, his voice was strong and sure. “I’m going to be okay.”

* * *

_News Report, Citadel NewsNet, 2184 Terran Common Era_

KEYWORDS: Citadel, Politics, Galactic Politics, Citadel Council  
REPORTER: Aia T’Kanis

If you passed by the turian embassy today, you might have heard a small riot in celebration. Councilor Sparatus returned from his extended leave today, making him the second of the three councilors to come back to work after Councilor Valern’s return last month. As a refresher, all three took leave to recover from their traumatic experience on board the _Destiny Ascension_ at the end of last year; Sparatus and his wife Aediteia went home to the city of Acalin in Palaven, and stayed for the duration of the calendar winter.

When questioned about the length of his stay, the councilor had this to say:

“ _At the end of last year, I was in a dark place. I’m willing to admit I was questioning whether or not I would return to the Citadel and my position, especially as time wore on and pressure mounted to get back to work. But there’s no rushing healing, and the longer I spent with my claws in the snow, the easier it became to face what happened, and as Trebia returns to the tundra, so I return to the Citadel. As any Acalinite will tell you, no matter how deep the darkness may seem, no matter how long it may linger, the light will always return.”_


End file.
